Connecting in Copenhagen: Rabbi Yitzi & Rochel Loewenthal

00:00 Speaker 1 Denmark definitely has a bit of a challenge with keeping strong Jewish identity.

00:04 Speaker 2 That's Rochel Loewenthal, Chabad shlucha to Copenhagen, Denmark. Shortly after they arrived in 1996, she and Rabbi Yitzi Loewenthal learned what the challenges were.

00:16 Speaker 1 Intermarriage was like 98-point-something. You know, the statistics were that the community's over within 10 years. The numbers weren't not looking so good.

00:23 Speaker 2 The overarching challenge Danish Jews faced was the pervasive, almost militant secularism amongst most Danes. So the Loewenthals' arrival in Copenhagen triggered serious skepticism and even some hostility when they began to work in the community.

00:40 Speaker 1 One specific mother who was y- you know, hysterical, actually threatened to call the police on us for making her child religious.

00:46 Speaker 3 We've had young people who just started becoming closer to Yiddishkeit, and their parents took them to psychologists to examine whether or not there was something mentally wrong with them.

00:56 Speaker 2 A month after their arrival in 1996, the Loewenthals knew that they had their work cut out for them. I'm Gary Wolk, and this is Lamplighters, stories from Chabad emissaries on the Jewish frontier. Life as a Chabad emissary is often joyous, but it can be unpredictable and even dangerous. Chabad has become a ubiquitous presence in every corner of the world, but behind every Chabad house are emissaries, regular people striving to transcend their circumstances, and a community that supports and relies on them. These are their stories. This Lamplighters episode is dedicated by Jonathan Pikoff in honor of Raymond Shenazy for his amazing support of the Los Cabos Jewish community. Thank you, Jonathan. To keep this podcast series going strong, please consider dedicating an episode. Email us at podcast@lubavitch.com to explore dedication opportunities. That's podcast@lubavitch.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. Yitzi Loewenthal was born and raised in London, England. His parents are university professors, his mother, Kate Miriam, in psychology, and his father, Tali, in Jewish spirituality. They became Chabad around the time Yitzi was born.

02:46 Speaker 3 So I grew up in the Lubavitch community in London, which has all the ingredients of a warm Chassidishe community. Definitely one of my favorite childhood memories is going at 2:30 in the morning to listen to the Rebbe's farbrengens over hookup. I remember once it was Chof Av, the Rebbe was farbrengen. The summer house that we had was such a primitive one, it did not have a telephone, so we drove to a telephone booth on the top of a hill and had a little speaker that we attached to the telephone booth, and about four or five kids and my father, um, sitting in the back of the car from 2:30 in the morning listening to the Rebbe's farbrengen. There was a farmer that thought we were there to steal his sheep, so he showed up with a shotgun wanting to know what we were doing there. I don't know how my father managed to explain to him what the Rebbe's farbrengen was, but that was a, a good childhood memory.

03:45 Speaker 2 Loewenthal's parents established a Frum household. His father has written books about Chabad. He's also the director of the Chabad Research Unit in the UK. Yitzi says he wasn't thinking about shlichus from a very young age, but...

04:00 Speaker 3 Slowly as I got older, 13, 14, 15, 16, it became much more relevant. It became more real for me.

04:07 Speaker 2 Loewenthal attended yeshiva in London for two years and then Ohr Hatorah in Crown Heights for another two.

04:14 Speaker 3 That was the years 5750 and '5751, where there was a farbrengen every week of the Rebbe, very special, definitely the two most special years of my life.

04:23 Speaker 2 Then Loewenthal was off to merk a shlichus.

04:25 Speaker 3 Our yeshiva had bochurim going all over the world, to Russia, to South Africa, to Australia. I had the very tough mission of going to Miami Beach. Somebody had to do it, and I actually finished my shlichus on Rosh Chodesh Tammuz 5754.

04:41 Speaker 2 That was just three days before Gimel Tammuz.

04:45 Speaker 3 But actually, as a bochur, I felt, you know, now that Gimel Tammuz had happened, the Rebbe was not with us physically, that I wanted to go on shlichus.

04:52 Speaker 2 Loewenthal stayed in Crown Heights and received smichah at 770 in early 1996. But as any listener to this podcast knows, Yitzi would need a partner in Jewish outreach.

05:05 Speaker 1 My name is Rochel, Rochel Loewenthal, maiden name Rodal. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My parents were shluchim.

05:11 Speaker 2 By the time Rochel had earned her teaching diploma, she knew that she wanted to go out on shlichus.

05:17 Speaker 1 Absolutely. So I, when I dated, you know, my parents asked me the, you know, the big question, "What kind of guy are you looking for?" So my thing was it's an anywhere shlichus guy. It's gotta be an anywhere guy, wherever is needed.

05:27 Speaker 2 That's when Yitzi Loewenthal came into the picture. He and Rochel met, dated, were engaged, and they married in March 1996. They had many options for shlichus.

05:39 Speaker 1 And then Denmark was mentioned.

05:41 Speaker 2 The only thing Yitzi Loewenthal knew about Denmark at that point was from his grandmother. Each year at the Loewenthal family Passover Seder, after the cup for Eliyahu HaNavi was poured, the family would recite Sh'foch chamascha el hagoyim, "Pour out your wrath on the nations," to which his grandmother would respond...

06:03 Speaker 3 "But not the Danes." And she would at that point proceed to tell the story of how the Danes had rescued the Jews during World War II. She'd never been to Denmark, but just the fact that the Danes had done this courageous act and rescued the Jews was something that struck her.

06:20 Speaker 2 Here's that history in a nutshell. In 1943, 500 Nazi SS officers were sent to round up Denmark's Jews, but the Danish resistance had already informed them of the danger, and the Danish citizens had begun to hide them. On the night of Rosh Hashana 1943, Danes ferried thousands of Jews over the water to Sweden, where they were welcomed and protected. In all, over 7,000 Jews were saved. It was an incredibly brave act of defiance. About two decades later, Chabad emissaries Rabbi Azriel Chaiken and Rabbi Abraham Azoba arrived in Copenhagen to lead a small yeshiva and synagogue. They planted many seeds, but there was potential for even more growth. By the '90s, Chaim and Chana Gray, a Chabad couple who had moved there to work for the pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, were calling for shluchim to move there permanently. They and others approached the Lowenthals with the idea.

07:28 Speaker 1 This just seemed it was very, very, very bashert. This was the rabbi's way of showing us this is where we're meant to be. We could really make a difference here, you know? There's a lot to do.

07:39 Speaker 3 So with the help of Rabbi Katarski, we moved down here just after Tishrei of 1996.

07:46 Speaker 2 I heard the term bashert when you described how you came to Denmark, so I'm assuming Copenhagen was just paradise from the outset, right?

07:55 Speaker 3 Uh, the word paradise, you have to have good weather to be a paradise. So, um, no, I wouldn't call it a paradise, but it was positive towards Jews.

08:03 Speaker 2 That was because Danes by nature are positive toward just about everyone. But the paradox is that they're not overly positive toward religious people.

08:14 Speaker 3 For a while, I was the only Jew walking around with a yamulka, including frumer Orthodox Jews. So it comes with another side, which is is that the Jews did not come out publicly or strongly as being Jewish.

08:26 Speaker 1 Denmark definitely has a bit of a challenge with keeping strong Jewish identity.

08:31 Speaker 2 The Lowenthals looked at the demographics and learned why.

08:35 Speaker 1 Intermarriage was like 98-point-something. You know, the statistics were that the community's over within 10 years. The numbers weren't not looking so good.

08:42 Speaker 2 When the Lowenthals arrived, Copenhagen had a Jewish-associated old age home, religious school, Orthodox synagogue, and even a kosher store, so there was some Jewish community and infrastructure.

08:55 Speaker 1 But when we came here, we very much wanted to work with the community just to help, you know, strengthen and create more excitement about being Jewish.

09:02 Speaker 3 Where are we needed? What can we do? How can we make things better?

09:07 Speaker 2 The Lowenthals began by meeting with Copenhagen's Jews, including community leaders.

09:13 Speaker 1 At the beginning, we were not very well-received.

09:15 Speaker 3 So they were simply not really familiar with what Chabad was, and they had a crisis meeting, "What are we gonna do about this crisis that Chabad has moved to town, and they want to snatch all our young people and turn them into very religious Jews?" It was somewhat humorous, although a little bit difficult, and, uh, I was surprised. And I remember actually at the first conference of shluchim, the first Kinus Hashluchim, it was a month after I came, and I went over to Rabbi Krinsky, and I said, "Rabbi Krinsky, you know we have a real problem." He said, "What's the problem?" Says, "In Copenhagen, there are people, a lot of people, that think there's something wrong with Chabad, that Chabad is some terrible thing." And he gave what I thought was quite a wise comment. He said, "Well, I guess you've got your work cut out."

09:59 Speaker 2 The Lowenthals had already begun with the Shabbos meals. The impact was immediately felt.

10:05 Speaker 3 I think we had seven people at our first Shabbos meal, and we've never had a Shabbos meal without guests since then.

10:11 Speaker 2 Then they added education.

10:13 Speaker 3 Strong kids' education. Although there is a Jewish school here, but it's on a very basic level. We started, of course, with Shiurei Torah.

10:19 Speaker 2 Yitzi and Rochel also began to learn the Danish language. Rabbi says that was a challenge.

10:26 Speaker 3 Oh, yes. Danish, I say, is designed to keep the foreigners identifiable, and it does a wonderful job. The main challenge is is that everybody speaks English, so everybody, the moment they hear your accent, they switch to English.

10:38 Speaker 2 But before too long, Rabbi was giving speeches and shiurim in Danish. He's even written a book in Danish. Rochel speaks fluently as well. That desire to connect with Danes helped more and more people become interested in what the Lowenthals were offering to the community. But for some, the old mindset persisted.

11:01 Speaker 1 It's really, really, really hard in Denmark. People have no understanding of religion. You know, anybody that believes is just considered weird, like, plain and simple. You know, like, "What's wrong with you?"

11:10 Speaker 3 But we've had young people who just started becoming closer to Yiddishkeit, and their parents took them to psychologists to examine whether or not there was something mentally wrong with them.

11:20 Speaker 2 Despite often fierce opposition, the Lowenthals inspired dozens of children to connect with Yiddishkeit in very meaningful ways. They tell stories of shidduchim, engagements and weddings, and of big, beautiful Jewish families, and of children learning diligently and going on to attend seminary and yeshiva.

11:42 Speaker 1 So it was naches.

11:44 Speaker 2 One of those was Nina Hasin.

11:46 Speaker 4 I'm adopted. I was born in Brazil. My parents, they adopted me when they lived in Israel. And, um, my parents got divorced when I was one.

11:56 Speaker 2 That was in 1993, when Nina and her mother and sister moved to Denmark, their mother's native country. At first, they lived in Odense- They kept what Nina calls traditional Judaism, eating traditional food on holidays, lighting the menorah at Hanukkah, attending Passover Seders. But other than those things, religious life was unfamiliar to Nina and her family.

12:22 Speaker 5 When I turned five, it was very important for my mom to move to Copenhagen because they have the Jewish school.

12:28 Speaker 2 That was the basic non-Chabad school that Rabbi Lowenthal referenced earlier. It's called the Carolineschool.

12:36 Speaker 5 And the, the kids in that class, traditional Jews, uh, most of them would light candles, but then drive to whichever family they were invited to, and then have the meal, maybe even in front of the television, and drive back home after.

12:53 Speaker 2 Nina says she was looking for the depth of Judaism. At that time, like almost all Danish Jews, she was afraid to express who she was.

13:02 Speaker 5 Like, we didn't say we were Jewish because of safety. You don't wear anything that makes you look Jewish at all.

13:10 Speaker 2 So Nina went along to get along. But then her best friend told her about Rochel Lowenthal, who offered Bas Mitzvah classes. 12-year-old Nina wanted to go and learn.

13:23 Speaker 5 And I remember my mom said, "I'll let you go, but you come back yourself. I hope you don't turn out like them." I had no idea what she meant. Like, "Of course I'll come back. It's just a meeting. Like, we make cookies."

13:37 Speaker 2 In addition to the cookies, Nina appreciated Rochel's calm, welcoming demeanor, so she continued. It was the beginning of a long and life-changing friendship.

13:48 Speaker 5 Well, I went through the Bat Mitzvah program. Like, I thought it was fun.

13:52 Speaker 2 That same year, Nina enrolled in a Gan Israel camp run by the Lowenthals.

13:58 Speaker 5 And, um, I thought it was amazing.

14:01 Speaker 2 Nina attended Chabad camp there every year after that.

14:05 Speaker 1 And then, Baruch Hashem, when she hit teenagehood, she really got very serious about Yiddishkeit, and it was very beautiful watching this journey.

14:11 Speaker 5 I went to any and every event Chabad made. My mom never went, but she let me. Like, looking back, I thought that was very amazing. She never went, but she let me go.

14:23 Speaker 2 Nina even went on to be a counselor at the Lowenthals' camp.

14:27 Speaker 5 And I was always helping, either in the kitchen, or doing activities, and a lot of translating.

14:34 Speaker 2 Because Nina could speak English as well as Danish, and she was learning Hebrew. She had become completely energized by everything she was learning. Why?

14:45 Speaker 5 I think it was being a part of something bigger. I felt a connection that I did not know was there, and I wanted more, always more. I had questions, and like, I would always talk to the counselors that came in. Like, "I want to know more of this world that I did not grow up in."

15:05 Speaker 2 And they'd teach her. As Nina learned, she began to act on what she was learning. She ate kosher, observed Shabbos, and dressed modestly. When Nina was 18, she attended seminary in Israel for six months. She returned to Copenhagen and studied political science at university. She continued to learn with Rochel in the mornings. A few years later, Nina met her bashert, Yehoshua. They were married in 2012 in Denmark.

15:37 Speaker 5 And Rabbi Yitzi was the rav, because we're both very close to him.

15:41 Speaker 2 The newlyweds lived in Copenhagen, attending Shabbos meals and staying overnight at the Lowenthals' Chabad house. They had children who soon became friendly with the Lowenthals' children. They were living a full Jewish life. Years before Nina was married, the Lowenthals suggested she live in a part of the world with a bigger Hasidic community, like London or Israel. Other than her six-month stint in seminary, Nina had balked at that advice, but then...

16:15 Speaker 6 In Denmark tonight, two men are under arrest, suspected of aiding the gunman in a pair of deadly terrorist shootings over the weekend, and we're learning more about that-

16:23 Speaker 2 Early in the morning, on February 15th, 2015, a gunman attacked Copenhagen's great synagogue, where 80 people were celebrating a Bas Mitzvah. The assailant was a 20-year-old Muslim gang member with a lengthy rap sheet and known affiliation with an imam who, in his sermons, called for the murder of Jews. He fired nine bullets into the synagogue, killing 37-year-old security guard Dan Uzan, and wounding two Danish officials.

16:55 Speaker 7 And Sky News has the news that a man in a gray hooded top has been surrounded by six armed officers after apparently shooting at Krudttønden-

17:02 Speaker 2 Nina and Yehoshua Chasin had left the party moments before the attack began

17:08 Speaker 5 Yehoshua, he was friends with Dan, and they hugged and had a bit of a conversation, and we left.

17:17 Speaker 2 The assailant escaped, but was later apprehended and killed by Danish police. The rampage, which earlier had also left a Danish artist dead, shook the entire country.

17:28 Speaker 5 I think that's the first time I saw my husband cry.

17:33 Speaker 2 For the Chasins, it was a clear message.

17:37 Speaker 5 We knew that we needed to move. That was really what did it.

17:43 Speaker 2 It took a while, but in early 2021, the Chasins moved to Israel, first to Netanya, and then to Karmiel.

17:51 Speaker 5 Oh, for multiple reasons. We are just blessing upon blessing here. Our kids attend a Chabad school. They love it, and I love everything that they're bringing home.

18:03 Speaker 2 Nina and the Lowenthals kept in touch. In fact, Nina even sees their children from time to time.

18:09 Speaker 5 Their kids are in seminary in Tzfat, and they come to me for Shabbat They feel at home, and I love it. We're just one big happy family.

18:19 Speaker 2 So apparently you not only benefited from being in close contact with the Lowenthals in Denmark, but they also made you a shliach.

18:28 Speaker 5 Yes, and I'm proud. So proud.

18:33 Speaker 2 So how would your life be different now if the Lowenthals had never been sent to Denmark?

18:39 Speaker 5 I wouldn't know that I was Jewish and what that really meant. That's for sure. I would have married a non-Jew, and I would still be living in Denmark probably, not Israel, and, um, I'm just forever grateful for Chabad's vision, forever.

19:02 Speaker 2 Rachel, how do you respond when you hear this from a person who's so grateful for what you and your husband have done for her?

19:10 Speaker 1 We're just the shluchim that had the zechus to be there for her. It is, I mean, it's incredible watching the, the neshama being lit up, and it's amazing to be part of it. Baruch Hashem, the Rebbe's vision is mind-blowing.

19:28 Speaker 2 The Lowenthals are always looking for the next candle to light. They run a full gamut of programs, some with the help of their son, Rabbi Levi Lowenthal, and his wife, Chana.

19:39 Speaker 3 From a kindergarten to kids' camps, both the summer and the winter, overnight camps and day camps.

19:45 Speaker 1 We have a little daycare. We have a Hebrew school. We have a restaurant which is open daily. We have a library, bas mitzvah club, and teen club, and you know, CYP, and-

19:55 Speaker 3 Daily minyan, helping people with the wedding preparation and getting married. So those are some of the things that we're involved with.

20:01 Speaker 2 And there's one very recent project.

20:05 Speaker 3 I was five years old when the war broke out.

20:09 Speaker 2 To mark the 80th anniversary of the rescue of about 7,000 Danish Jews from the Nazis by the Danish resistance and ordinary Danish citizens, Chabad of Denmark held a reenactment in 2023 with stories told by survivors of the rescue operation aboard a boat that sailed part of the route from Copenhagen to Sweden.

20:32 Speaker 1 We filled up the boat, and as we were sailing, the different survivors told their stories.

20:37 Speaker 2 The survivors made a blessing on the very spot on which they were saved.

20:42 Speaker 1 The Shehecheyanu, made

21:43 Speaker 2 Which is another way of saying we are determined to complete our mission. For the Lowenthals, that means meeting every Danish Jew where he or she is, always keeping in mind that a simple gesture or act of kindness can make all the difference in the world, the way it did for Nina Hassine and for so many more.

22:06 Speaker 3 We've now been here 28 years. All of the times that people have said, "You know what? Something changed," it was because I served them the soup or that I helped them in the middle of the night to do X, Y, or Z. So whatever it might be, it's the small act that has a tremendous value, and I think the Rebbe's vision is, "Va-atem," to look to echad echad, that we impact each person one at a time through our actions, and that's something that each and every one of us is able to do. To make things grow, and that there should be for Le-Yehudim, for the Jewish people, should be orov, and simcha, ve-sasson, ve-ikar, light, and joy, and goodness in a revealed fashion, both in galus and with the coming of Mashiach.

22:51 Speaker 1 And the bottom line is we gotta bring Mashiach, you know? It's way, way overtime, way overdue.

23:08 Speaker 2 I'm Gary Wolik. Thanks for listening to Lamplighters: Stories from Chabad Emissaries on the Jewish Frontier. We welcome your questions and comments about what you've just heard on Lamplighters. Please email us at podcast@lubavitch.com. And if you know of a great story involving Chabad emissaries or the people they inspire, please let us know about them. That's podcast@L-U-B-A-V-I-T-C-H.com. To subscribe digitally to Lubavitch International Magazine or to receive it at your doorstep, please visit lubavitch.com/subscribe. Lamplighters is a project of Machne Israel, the social services arm of Chabad Lubavitch.